Harold Edward Bindloss

“ You don't believe in doing that in the Colonies?"
"No," laughed Ida, "we are rather fond of making it clear that we are quite above the average as a people. However, it's excusable, perhaps, for, after all, there's a germ of truth in it. I think Miss Kinnaird will agree with that."
Arabella leaned a little farther over her chair.
"I'll leave you to talk it out with Mr. Ainslie. But there's another matter. Does Miss Weston recall to you anybody we have met?"
"No," said Ida, with a somewhat incautious decisiveness. "If you mean our camp-packer, she certainly does not." ”

“ Then she laughed and turned to Ainslie.
"You and Miss Stirling can thrash out the question."
She strolled away, and Ainslie watched Ida, whose eyes were following Miss Weston at the tennis net.
"Yes," he remarked, "we play these games rather well; and, after all, is there any reason why we shouldn't? There are a good many people in this country who don't consider them as of the first importance." ”

“ As Stirling had once said, when they want a chopper in that country they make him chop, and facility in posing is of very little service when one is called on to grapple with virgin forest or stubborn rock.
Young as Ida was, she had a grip of essential things, and a dislike of shams. It generally happened, too, that, when she felt strongly on any subject, she sooner or later expressed her thoughts in forcible words; and before that afternoon was over she and Arabella Kinnaird between them disturbed the composure of more than one of Mrs. Kinnaird's guests. ”

“ There was an expressive silence for a moment or two, and then Major Kinnaird looked at the others.
"I know nothing about the first incident, but I think that Miss Stirling could have gone a little further when she described the last one," he said. "My daughter, who was badly injured, would probably have been left another day on the range, without food or any attention, if it had not been for the courage and endurance the man displayed. I wish to say, however, that I had no idea he was any connection of Mr. Weston's until this moment."
Ida's heart warmed toward Kinnaird. ”

“ He was our camp-packer, the man who set up the tents, made the fires, and poled the canoes," she said.
Weston stood up and, looking hard at Kinnaird, straightened himself. His face was an unpleasant red, and there was badly-suppressed anger in his eyes.
"Time is getting on, and we have rather a long drive," he said. "I may ask Miss Stirling's leave to call on her later. In the meanwhile, if Mrs. Kinnaird will excuse us——"
His hostess made no attempt to keep him; and, as he moved away, his daughter stopped for a moment beside Ida's chair. ”

“ They're rending new roads through the mountains to let in progress and civilization, and making fast the foundations of the future greatness of a wide and prosperous land. Already, because of what they and their kind have done, you can travel through it without seeing a ragged, slatternly woman, or a broken-down, desperate man. ”

“ Like others born in the newer lands, she believed first of all in practical efficiency, and she had learned during journeys made with her father that the man with few wants and many abilities, or indeed the man with only one of the latter strenuously applied to a useful purpose, is the type in most favor in western Canada. Graces do not count for much in the west, nor does the assumption of ability carry a man as far as it sometimes does in older communities. ”

“ She was a tall, pale woman, with a coldly formal manner and some taste in dress.
There were several other guests in the house, and the party spent most of the hot afternoon about the tennis net and lounging under the shadow of a big copper beech on the lawn. ”

“ We have quite a few of your graduates out yonder laying railroad ties, as well as lawyers who have got into trouble over trust money, and army men who couldn't meet their turf debts or were a little too smart at cards. ”